You Know How Time Flies, Don’t You?

There, now I sense it.
I guess it. I even know you’re dreaming of someone else.
And it occurs to me the past doesn’t matter all that much.
Not to dreams.
And even if it did, old friend,
why be ashamed?
Someone will read it for you in the coffee grounds
or in a dream. Dreaming.

Now I’ll smile and take a walk beneath the light
falling from the trees with yellow and red leaves
onto the brown grass, my friend. My unfriend.
It doesn’t matter. There’s no reason. None.
Sometimes it happens like that.
I learned this from the people I have hurt.
They used to say:
“It goes like that sometimes… I ain’t mad at you…”

And I will do the same.
And I’m not angry with you. Nor do I forget you,
but I do walk with a cool loneliness
seeped in beneath my collar.

It doesn’t even hurt.
And in fact I don’t remember.
Not that I forget. I just don’t retain.
You understand me, don’t you?
(It’s only an expression, don’t listen too, too closely.)

We never even got acquainted.
And there was no need to.
It’s hard to look into souls
deeply. For long.
Indecent, even, isn’t it?

Better, with absent glances through the window,
to splash little ripples on the surface of the pavement.
And to blow into our cupped hands to hide our good mood.
A shallow rain, that was, my pleasant Unfriend…

(Now I remember I haven’t dreamed lately.)

…even our glances at the passers-by
are shallow, my old well-wisher.

Sour, this coffee I won’t finish.

And bitter smiles
I’ll twist into a grimace
ever more rarely and more briefly.

You know how time flies.
Sometimes it goes like that…
Blah, ding-ding, blah.
Blah-blah…
Ripples on the pavement…

I’ll be going now…
I’m off to learn my lesson.
That one, the karmic one,
that a man is alone.
Not lonely…

Yes… And see you soon… Yes…
We’ll keep in touch.
Of course…

Already outside, swaying along the pavement,
I remembered that I had sensed it.
Even knew you were already dreaming of someone else.
But I had already forgotten you
and myself. And the two of us —
both me, who already knows,
and you, who are already dreaming.

I splashed my soles through the shallow ripples
left by our hands
and smiled at the other strangers in the street…

…and a full and warm loneliness
spread across my smile
like an old cognac,
as I turned to wave goodbye.